ONE of Britain’s most iconic monuments could be restored to the rail network with the help of former Python Michael Palin.

Transport Secretary Patrick McLoughlin has instructed engineers to investigate whether the Euston Arch could be rebuilt.

He wants to meet TV presenter Palin, a patron of the Euston Arch Trust, to discuss the idea in detail. The 70ft high arch stood outside London’s Euston station from 1837 until it was demolished in 1961.

In 1994 historian Dan Cruickshank discovered more than half the 4,000-ton structure buried in the bed of the Prescott Channel canal in east London. With its Yorkshire stone barely weathered by decades under water, the historian said reconstruction was a “tangible reality”.

Now Mr McLoughlin is keen to restore the arch as part of Euston’s planned development as the southern terminus of the new High Speed Two rail link.

Michael Palin is a patron of the Euston Arch Trust

Great British designs backed by great British heroes like Michael Palin, that is exactly what HS2 is all about.

A Department for Transport source

A Department for Transport source said: “Engineers have been instructed to look in detail at how they could make it work. High Speed Two has the potential to transform Britain but we need to be ambitious if we are going to make the most of it.

“Great British designs backed by great British heroes like Michael Palin, that is exactly what HS2 is all about.”

Mr Palin said: “The restoration of Euston Arch would restore to London’s oldest mainline terminus some of the character and dignity of its great neighbours” [King’s Cross and St Pancras].

The arch, designed by Philip Hardwick, was part of Robert Stephenson’s London and Birmingham Railway. A similar structure on the site of Birmingham’s former Curzon Street ­station would also be restored.